Chapter 11: Syntax

philosophy of syntax

The sentence structure of Vorlin is designed to be a compromise
that blends a degree of naturalness with a degree of freedom from
syntactic ambiguity. Vorlin’s rules of syntax are an amalgam of
patterns from many languages. Vorlin is not meant to be a word-by-word
encoding of English (or any other language).

the basics

In simple sentences, the word order is SVO (subject, verb, object). A
simple intransitive sentence can have SV or VS syntax. Adjectives and adverbs
appear before the words which they modify; prepositional phrases generally
appear after the items which they modify.

There are three main types of valid sentence in Vorlin: the vocative phrase, the
fragment, and the full sentence.

vocative phrase

A vocative phrase gives the name or description of the person who is being
spoken to, or attracts the attention of the person being spoken to. English
examples: a phrase like “dear Mister Jones” at the beginning of a
letter, or “hello, Elizabeth” at the beginning of a conversation. In
Vorlin, a vocative phrase must begin with a vocative particle; this may
optionally be followed by one or more noun phrases, such as name(s). A vocative
phrase may optionally end with a sentence-final particle. Examples:

A fragment consists of a few words or a short phrase, and does not
contain a verb or a vocative particle. Fragments are rare in formal writing
and are common in casual conversation.

guta! = Good!
san ma? = Three?
ne! = Don’t do it!

full sentence

A full sentence must contain a verb phrase, and any sentence containing a
verb phrase is classified as a full sentence. A full sentence may optionally
begin with one or more modal particles. A full sentence may optionally include
adverb phrases or prepositional phrases at the beginning that modify the whole
sentence. The next optional item is the noun phrase which is the subject of
the verb. Next comes the mandatory verb phrase. If the verb is transitive,
it may be followed by the direct object, and this may be followed by the
beneficiary. Toward the end of the full sentence we may optionally include
one or more adverb phrase(s) and/or prepositional phrase(s) that modify the
verb phrase. At the very end of the sentence we may optionally include a
sentence-final particle.

questions

A declarative sentence can be turned into a question simply by inserting
the word ma at the end. ti vido ya ma? = Do you see me? The
answer consists of the main verb from the question, with or without the
negative particle non.vido. = Yes, I see you. non
vido. = No, I don’t see you.

The presence of an interrogative word (such as the equivalent to
“where?” or “what?”) does not cause a change in word
order.

apposition

The term “apposition” refers to a phrase in which two nouns are
adjacent, refer to the same entity, and do not have a conjunction or preposition
between them. English examples are “the playwright Shakespeare” and
“John the baptist.” Apposition is not permitted in Vorlin. The
special preposition ze, meaning “which I further specify as ...”,
is used to deal with these situations: bur ze Cikágo = the city
(of) Chicago, Tomas ze kurnik = Thomas the health-care professional.
These phrases have a “topic-comment” syntax, i.e. the thing being
discussed is mentioned first, followed by ze and the comment (further
specification).

parataxis

The term “parataxis” refers to two phrases or sub-sentences
appearing side by side without an intervening conjunction to indicate how
they are related. English examples are “I know she loves me” and
“if you visit my house, I’ll show you my garden.” In Vorlin (as
in many other languages), parataxis is not permitted, and one must say the
equivalent of “I know that she loves me” or “if you
visit my house, then I’ll show you my garden.”

relative clauses

A relative clause is a certain type of phrase that modifies a noun. An
English example is “that modifies a noun” in the previous sentence. In
English, a relative clause must always occur after the noun which it
modifies; approximately half of the world’s languages put relative clauses
before the modified noun. An example, from Mandarin Chinese:

Ni gei wo de zhè zhibi feicháng hao.
you give me de this pen extraordinary good
(This pen that you gave me is very nice.)

In the example, the particle de essentially converts the phrase
“you gave me” into a modifier that appears before the noun, almost
as if the phrase had become an ordinary adjective.

Vorlin also places relative clauses before the nouns to which they are
attached. The relative clause must begin with wel and end with
da. Here are a few examples, followed by literal, semi-literal,
and free translations into English.

A certain amount of syntactic chaos in English is caused by the fact that
a noun can be followed by relative clauses and/or prepositional phrases, which
in turn can contain more relative clauses and/or prepositional phrases.
By placing the relative clause in front of its noun and explicitly marking the
beginning and end of the phrase, Vorlin avoids a lot of these entanglements.

I would urge Vorlin users not to embed one relative clause inside another.

nominalized clauses

Just as wel ... da converts a phrase into the equivalent
of an adjective, ke ... das turns a phrase into a noun-equivalent.
das is normally omitted if it would appear at the end of a sentence.

ke tis kat non fajo ful das guti.ke your cat not eats bird das be good.
It is good that your cat does not eat birds.

Two vital areas of syntax remain unresolved: conjunctions and quotations.

In English we use the same word to conjoin words regardless of their part-of-speech:
compare “I invited your sister and your brother” versus “I bought and
sold books.” Using the same word for all kinds of conjoining will not work in Vorlin.
(It doesn’t work in Japanese either.)

Quotations are another tricky area. It would be nice to have a word that means
“this is the beginning of a quotation.” What form would that word have? What is its
part-of-speech? Would the language also require a word meaning “end of quotation”?

In my opinion, potential solutions to these two problems must be tested with
computerized parsing of Vorlin text. The parser rule-set and lexicon files need
to be updated before any such testing can begin. (See
this page for some
background.)

conclusion

Apart from the two issues mentioned in the previous section, I believe all of the future
needs of Vorin can be met by adding more words to the vocabulary. Solving a perceived
problem by expanding the vocabulary should always be viewed as better than changing
the rules of grammar or adding more rules.